Poll finds sentiment to impeach Sanford waning

South Carolinians are no more anxious to see beleaguered Republican Gov. Mark Sanford be impeached today than they were six months ago, according a new poll released Friday.

And voters now are less likely to think Sanford should resign from office than they were in June, a new Rasmussen Reports poll shows.

In June, when news was breaking that Sanford had secretly left the state for five days to visit his lover in Argentina, 40 percent of voters favored impeachment, according to Rasmussen.

Now, after a series of embarrassing confessionals from Sanford, a string of calls for the governor to resign, and an Ethics Commission investigation that charged the governor with 37 violations, even fewer S.C. voters say Sanford should be removed from office. In a poll conducted this week, 36 percent of voters said they favor impeachment. Forty-nine percent said in the telephone poll taken Thursday that Sanford should not be impeached, meaning nearly half of voters are convinced the governor should not be removed.